


to be alone (with you)

by writedeku



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archie Andrews Learns From His Mistakes, Archie Andrews and Betty Reconcile, Archie Andrews is Better Than He Is, Archie Andrews is Not Such a Dick, Asexual Jughead Jones, Bisexual Archie Andrews, Hurt/Comfort, Jughead Jones Needs a Hug, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 22:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10818300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writedeku/pseuds/writedeku
Summary: Jug sighed and turned to leave. “Forget it. I’m fine, Archie.”He had barely made it several feet before Archie gripped his shirt and swung him around hard, until it was Archie looming in front of Jug like a monolith, pressing him up against the wall. The noticeboard he crashed into made a loud creaking noise. It was most uncomfortable. Jug could feel several thumbtacks digging into the small of his back.“What do I care?” Archie asked, and now it is he who has the dangerous edge to his voice. Oh, how the tables have turned. “Why do you have to always be so-”“So what?” Jughead demanded. “Alone? Moody-”





	to be alone (with you)

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone! i took the liberty here to reimagine what Riverdale would be like if they wrote Archie Andrews the way he was supposed to be written. good, humble, and openminded, willing to learn from his mistakes, fiercely loyal to his friends. i missed that archie andrews, and it pains me.
> 
> yes, jughead is ace, but it features in as a fact that is not contested. this fic is not jughead debating if being ace is right. but of course, there are his doubts that come with being ace.
> 
> i hope you all enjoy it, and i'll see you in the next fic!
> 
> update: i posted this accidentally about two hours ago when i was not ready to post it and instead wanted to save it as a draft bc i hadnt done the formatting yet oops. here is the finalised version! sorry for the trouble.

Jughead decided one night that the world is a conundrum of people, each more puzzling than the last. He was more of an observer than a participant- keen to stand on the sidelines and watch the tension in people’s eyes as they talk to people who they are friendly with- but only in public. In particular he enjoyed watching the way the Coopers and the Blossoms interact, especially in private. He was no stranger to the nooks, alleys, and crannies Riverdale had to offer.

The Coopers always looked at the Blossoms with ice in their eyes. They were cold, standoff-ish and brutal. The Coopers were a ruthless family governed by tradition and some semblance of the American Dream that they desperately clung to.

While the Coopers were ice, the Blossoms were like their flame-red hair- fiery devils that burned the very ground they stood on. They jumped from topic to topic, barely a flicker of a reaction to anything said their way, but enough hurt dancing on the tips of their tongues to keep anyone backing away. Meticulous and power-hungry, they commanded fear, not respect, and ruled with iron fists.

Jughead always thought that if the town were to undergo a civil war, these two families would be leading opposite ends. He just didn’t think it’d actually happen.  

“Kind of World War One isque, don’t you think?” Jughead mentioned in passing to what has now become his group. Kevin raised one eyebrow. Betty and Archie both look slightly alarmed, but Veronica tilted her head and nodded. “How the Coopers and the Blossoms are jumping at each other because of Jason’s death. Kind of like when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.” 

Veronica made a noise of assent. Betty said, “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“I think it already has,” Kevin shook his head. “We’re picking sides here."

“I’m Switzerland,” Jughead volunteered quickly. The group eyed him dirtily. Jughead could live with their stares.

Veronica watched him over the rim of her glass. Her eyes spelt power, her lips oozed confidence. Merciless when provoked, Jughead sometimes felt the only person who may understand that he is not _good_ , not in the way Archie and Betty are, is Veronica.

* * *

 Reggie Mantle was a goddamn piece of work. Jughead could barely keep his cool as he watched Reggie and the rest of his squad saunter off into the distance, draping their arms around girls they’d keep for a week and then drop just as fast as they’d picked them up.

 Archie seemed to notice his displeasure, because he looked up from his sheet music to say, “I thought you were Switzerland?”

 “Yeah, but Mantle drives me up the wall,” Jughead all but spit, slipping into the chair next to him.

 “Why?”

Jughead bit down harshly on the truth that threatened to spill from every orifice in his body. It wasn’t always like this. Jughead used to tell Archie everything, and vice versa. But then Archie became less, and less observant, and Jughead more and more afraid, and somehow their communication just...stopped, like an assembly line with far too few workers.

“Ah, you know. His type of people,” Jughead deflected.

 “This doesn’t have anything to do with second grade, does it?” Archie’s honey eyes look at him, swirling with barely present worry.

  _Does it?_ Jughead thought scathingly. “You mean the time Mantle shoved me face first into a urinal and tried to pee on me because I told him I didn’t want to share my colouring pencils? No. Don’t be stupid, Archie.”

 Archie snorted and scribbled something down onto the paper. After a couple of moments, he looked up and asked, “what would you say rhymes with bottle?”

 “Why the fuck are you singing about a bottle?” Jughead demanded. He wondered if Archie was singing about alcohol and cringed at the idea of Archie, boy next door, trying to be edgy. Archie couldn’t even hold his own liquor. Couple of chugs from a keg and whoosh, your boy is _wasted._

 Before Archie could reply, Mantle strode back into the common room to pick up a jacket he left behind. He saw the two of them sitting there, Jughead sprawled on the creaky, wooden chair, Archie hunched over the table, staring off into the distance, and nodded once. Then he mouthed the word gay at Jughead before flinging back open the doors on the way out.

 The trouble with small towns was that you could never outrun your enemies. And your enemies never closed the damn door.

* * *

Jughead learnt very quickly by being homeless that the pressure of not having enough ate away at you until you were sitting in class, holding your wallet in one hand and the few bills you have in the other and _praying_ that you have enough to make it to the end of the week. 

He’d been counting the coins on his table for the entire period of chemistry and he’s still sure he’s counting it wrong. On a very strict budget since he got his paycheck, Jughead knew this could not be all he had left.

“What’s up doc?” Archie asked, his honey eyes setting his skin on fire with worry. He leant on the table and grinned up at him. “The lesson was dismissed six minutes ago, y’know. It’s lunch.”

Jughead slid the coins into his lap as swiftly as he could. “Nothing much, what’s up with you?”

Archie laughed. He perched himself on Jughead’s table as the remaining dredges of students file out of the classroom. The teacher eyed them with suspicion, but left the room too, until it was just the two of them and the stale smell of chemicals and books. “Did you hear? People think _I_ killed Jason. It’s the latest rumor.”

“ _You_?” Jughead choked involuntarily. To say Archie could not kill a fly was not correct, he would with certain relish, but the idea that he could raise a hand against someone when it was not in defence of the innocent was a damn lie.

“Yeah. You wanna hear my motive?”

“Oh, do tell,” Jughead laughed, watching his eyes swirl with excitement.

“Anonymous dash riverdale x x has said on Riverdale High’s confession page on Instagram-”

“We have a confession page?” He asked, incredulously.

“Yeah,” Archie shrugged. “Cheryl started it when her brother died. Because that’s a natural human reaction to loss.”

Jughead was unimpressed.

“Anyway, she says that, and I quote, “Archie done did it b c hes- there’s no apostrophe here, by the way- a sad copy of Jason and wants to prove hes better, with six exclamation marks and an angry face emoji. I personally think this is better than this other post by ripriverdale, who insists that “Omg guys of course Polly did it because she killed Jason accidentally while having kinky BDSM sex and she shot him in the head to hide the fact that he suffocated from a gag or some toy.”

Jughead was no longer hungry. He made a gagging sound and Archie laughed.  Archie’s laugh sounds like a song you heard once on the radio and never got the name of, but that one line you remember haunts you over and over again. It imbued the same feeling of nostalgia in everyone that heard it, but try as they might they never knew exactly what they were missing.

“C’mon, Jughead. The cafeteria beckons,” Archie offered his hand. Jughead stared an open invitation in the face- he could make amends, he could _be_ with Archie, he could allow himself into this sort of franken-group they’ve created here, he could let himself appreciate the people he could have close to him- and he turned it down.

 “Man, I’d love to, but I gotta finish this math assignment. You know how Jackson gets when we don’t finish it,” Jughead _lied._

 As though Archie felt the sting of the lie sink into his skin, his smile faded, then brightened. “As you wish,” he said, with enough of his old humour to convince Jughead that he hadn’t royally fucked it up, but as he turned around, his smile melted off his face.

When the door closed behind Archie, Jughead hunched over the table with disgust and self-hatred, and clenched the coins in his palm so tightly they could’ve cut into his skin. He almost wished they did.

* * *

Archie could’ve told you a million reasons why he liked Jughead, and none would’ve been good enough. Jughead to him was more than a mystery, more than an enigma- which is what many girls found, well, attractive about him.

 He’s had many a girl, and once, a guy, slide into the seat next to him and go, “so do you know what’s up with Jughead? Like, why is he called Jughead? What kind of name _is_ that? What’s he like? Is he has bad as he looks? Does he smoke? _What happened to him?_ ”

Archie always told them the same thing. To ask him themselves. But none could be bothered to go that far. They admired him from a distance, like he was some gothic marble statue, draped in the shadows of doubt, uncertainty, and a pessimistic outlook on life. They giggled over him they saw him sitting alone on the bleachers, notepad in hand, and Jughead never took notice of them. He never so much as glanced at them even, as if they weren’t just not worth his time, they were not there at all. They were so insignificant that Jughead would look at an ant crawling along the bleachers than even look up at the source of the commotion.

 When they were younger, it was blamed on cooties. Then, it was strict parents. A religious upbringing. A healthy respect for women. But by the time they were fourteen and Reggie was bragging about his third girl that month, well, it got harder and harder to excuse Jug’s lack of interest.

Jug couldn’t care less, obviously. Archie often wondered what he did care about. What he would fight for. He was Archie’s polar opposite, and he often found himself wondering why he liked him so much. It would’ve been much easier to join the bandwagon of people calling him gay than to tell them to back the hell off.

But in some odd, funny sort of way, Archie felt compelled to stick to this boy who had eyes of anger and hate because the world never offered him anything.

 He sticked with him even now, after years of mistakes and fumbling his way around anything Jughead related, not out of pity, or some twisted sense of duty, but because deep down Jug had gripped him and Archie had decided to keep him, in an entirely different way than he had when he’d chose to stay with Betty. 

“What’s up, faggots?” Clayton demanded as he and his squad rolled into the common room. Reggie laughed and the two shared a fistbump. Archie could almost feel Jug tense up and become slightly agitated.

Clayton made an obscene hand gesture at Jug, which looked vaguely like he was being a fish, but on inference from context, he was probably miming a blowjob. Reggie thrusted back and forth in the air comically.

 Archie barely even forms the words to hold an angry Jughead off before the other lashed out like a whip. “Reggie, you really shouldn’t be calling people out on their sexual preferences when I _know_ for a fact that you have a watersport kink,” Jughead tilted his head, a dangerous edge to his razor sharp tone. “Or were you not into that when you tried to piss on me in second grade?”

The room went utterly silent. Clayton snorted and said, “dude, you pissed on him?”

“I do not-” Reggie started, but is interrupted by the sarcastic, spiteful drawl of Jug once more.

“I distinctly remember you, why, _enjoying_ it, dear Reggie. You don’t have to be ashamed of your kinks, you know.”

“That was second grade!”

“Some people start early, I’ve heard. Though I’ve also heard about some, ahem,” Archie sighed when he heard that pregnant pause and began to stand up, because he knew what Jug’s tone meant, and he knew whatever he had to say next would start a fight, as always. “Some stunted growth down there. Don’t hide who-”

Reggie quite literally leapt for Jug, diving over the coffee table in the way and would’ve full on body slammed him if Archie had not yanked him out of the way by the collar. Jug sniggered at Reggie’s confused face at ending up with a fistful of leather instead of Jug’s neck, but recovered quickly to take a swing 

Jug dodged it easily and smiled patronisingly, leading Archie to stage another emergency intervention. 

“This has been fun, but we gotta get going, right Jug?” Archie asked breathlessly, dragging him out of the room.

 “No we don’t,” said Jug. He cocked his head at Reggie and made crooked his finger in a come hither gesture. Reg started for him, and Archie shoved the stubborn boy out of the door and slid between the two of them.

“He’s high,” Archie declared, his eyes holding a challenge Reggie dared not meet. “See ya on the field, Reg.”

* * *

“You wanna pull yourself together?” Archie tapped his foot on the ground, ever the disappointed father.

Jughead rolled his eyes. “As if,” he spit, folding his arms across his chest. “Mantle deserves a good taking down and you know that." 

“While I do like watching Reg get knocked off his high horse, don’t you have an ounce of self preservation? You took him on in a room of people who couldn’t care less about your wellbeing.”

“Archie, I’m sleeping in the janitor’s closet, so no, I do not,” Jughead pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. He did not even register what he revealed until Archie’s grip on his arm slowly turned bruisingly painful. “Um, _ow_!”

“You’re sleeping in the _janitor’s_ closet?” Archie seethed. Hell hath no fury like Archie does when his friends are mistreated. “The fucking mop cupboard?”

Jughead dropped his head. “Ah, shit.”

“Don’t ah shit me! What the fuck man? What happened?”

" _You_ don’t bullshit me, you know what happened! My mother bailed when my father lost his goddamn job,” Jughead yelled, backing Archie up against the wall lockers. “She took Jellybean and just- gone. Left after a month. Took the dog, their clothes, the car- everything. The house went next when we couldn’t afford the rent. Dad moved into some trailer. I went to the drive-in.” Jughead looked at him meaningfully.

Realisation dawned on Archie. “Then the drive-in closed.”

He relaxed the hold he had on Archie’s shirt but didn’t let go. “Yes, Archiekins. The drive-in closed.”

Archie took a moment. “Well screw that then. You’re coming home with me today. And you’re going to stay, as long as you need to.”

“I couldn’t impose,” he replied with a painful smile. “I’m not sure your father-"

“He won’t mind I   _promise_ ,” Archie clasped the back of his neck in one hand and the side of his face in other. The warmth from the calloused palms spread through his skin until he was certain he was on fire. “Please, Jug.”

Jughead clenched the fist he had on Archie’s shirt tight again. He almost, almost accepted the invitation without a fight, but Jug has never been able to do that. Instead he asked, “what do you care?”

 Archie seemed stunned.

 Jug sighed and turned to leave. “Forget it. I’m fine, Archie.”

 He had barely made it several feet before Archie gripped his shirt and swung him around hard, until it was Archie looming in front of Jug like a monolith, pressing him up against the wall. The noticeboard he crashed into made a loud creaking noise. It was most uncomfortable. Jug could feel several thumbtacks digging into the small of his back.

“What do I care?” Archie asked, and now it is he who has the dangerous edge to his voice. Oh, how the tables have turned. “Why do you have to always be so-”

 “So what?” Jughead demanded. “Weird? Alone? Moody-”

“So utterly unaware of your own self-worth,” Archie interrupted. Jug felt his mouth opening with every statement Archie made. “Too fucking _blind_ and selfish, and narrow-minded to see that not everything is _that_ bad for you Jug! Not everyone conspires against you. You don’t have to play your life out like a martyr, pushing everyone who gets close to you away because either you’re scared they’ll hurt you or because you’re scared that they won’t.” 

“Now wait a minute-” 

Archie cocked his head at him. “Did I fucking stutter? Look me in the eye, and tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you’re not doing all this to yourself because of some twisted sense of nobility, as though by forcefully wrapping yourself in the “boy raised on the wrong side of life” stereotype that you’d somehow make amends for some wrong you _think_ you did.”

 “Archie, I just don’t enjoy the company of people,” Jug hissed, exasperated. “That’s literally all that it is.”

 “No, it is not.”

 “Yes it-”  
  
“Because then you wouldn’t be asking me why I cared that my best friend is currently homeless!” 

“I’m not-”

“Or why you won’t go to lunch with me, or to the movies, or for a walk. You do all this to yourself because deep down you’re scared you’ll never fill the hole you have in yourself,” Archie jabbed his finger into the middle of Jughead’s chest. “I’m through indulging it.”

Jug’s breath was coming in short pants, his chest rising and falling sharply with every inhale he made. He did not know how to convey to Archie the utter hopelessness one felt when they were in his situation, how tired he was all the time, how much it broke him to sit there and leave the conversation early.

Why he denied himself these simple pleasures would forever elude him. Perhaps it was simply an act of convenience. Perhaps comfort. But it was also undeniable that at least some of what Archie was desperately trying to convey was true- but he could not bring himself to change. Such was the nature of things here in Riverdale High. They needed a stereotype, and they got one.

“What are you going to do about it?” Jug issued the challenge with a slight tremor in his voice. It caused Archie to finally look up at him. He seemed almost close to tears.

“I don’t want to change you, Jug. I don’t want you to take off the hat or start being a Reggie or going clubbing or-” Archie casted his hands about hopelessly. “I just want you to realise that we- Kevin, Ronnie, Betty- we care about you. We are your _friends_. Unconditionally.”

 An unspoken message flitted through the both of them.

 Jug slowly eased off the tension riding high in his body until he was being held up by Archie. “It’s so hard,” he admitted, his voice cracking slightly on the last word.

“Take it easy,” Archie offered. “Come to us. I know you’ve had it bad, Jug, but we can help. And we won’t make fun of you, and we won’t belittle your pain, and we won’t turn you away. But you gotta come to us.”

 “I’ll come home with you,” Jug relented, and Archie nodded gravely. “I’m sorr-”

 “No need to apologise,” Archie said firmly. “For simply being an idiot.”

 Jughead exhaled a small snort of laughter at that statement. Archie smiled gently at him, leaning forward to press their foreheads together in a way that felt entirely non-platonic and gripping him in a tight hug. “We go through this together.”

 “But it is not your burden to bear.”

 “I can help,” Archie breathed. “I mean, what’s that thing Ms. Turner always said?”

 “What, the darkness thing?”

 “Yeah. What is- oh yeah! Walking with a friend in the darkness is better than walking alone in the light.”

“Poetic,” Jughead sniffed, and Archie was too nice of a person to comment on his slightly damp shirt when they’d separated.

* * *

Archie made up a simple bed for him, piling it high with odd pillows taken from various places around his house and a blanket he said once belonged to his mother aeons ago. It did not matter, it smelt like Archie’s home, like the jasmine reed diffuser Fred had in the kitchen and the sickly sweet scent of their detergent, and was comforting in a way that nothing had been for a long time.

Fred came in to say welcome, enjoy your stay, and Jug nearly fell to his knees with gratitude at the kindness of this man. Fred laughed, told him not to worry about it, that he was more than welcome, and left after running through the next day with Archie. There was a certain sort of pain from talking to the man who he could blame for everything that happened to him, but he knew that Fred did what he had to do, not what he wanted to, and that the Andrews are ever a family of duty and compassion. His father had brought upon his family what he sowed.

In the darkness of the room once they’d turned off the lights, Jug worked up the courage to finally ask, “what happened over the summer?”

Archie tensed. He could almost hear the bedsprings creak.

 “You changed. You weren’t as kind, or gentle, or anything like the Archie I knew. Something broke you, didn’t it?” Jug braved the questions. Archie helped him. He would help in return. “You forgot your friends. You were lost.”

 “I treated Betty and you-” Archie started, then trailed off as the words did not come to him. “I forgot that you were people with problems beyond me. I was selfish.”

 “Why?”

“Because I thought someone loved me and they didn’t,” Archie replied bitterly. “How do you recover from that? From thinking you were wanted to realising you were nothing at all. I tried so hard, Jug. I tried so _hard_.” 

Jug sat up in bed, holding his blankets close to his chest. “What made you stop?”

“You,” Archie said simply. “Always talking sense into me. That night at Pop’s, when you told me to go speak to Betty. That it was all she needed. That night at the game. When I realised I had missed you. And today, when I realised I forgot you.”

Jug smiled, though he wasn’t sure if Archie could see it in the dim light. “You are forgiven, you know. I forgave you long before that night at Pop’s.” 

“Well. I had to make it right,” an anxious reply came. “I hope I have.”

Jug reached out a hand and snatched it back just as quickly. “You have.” 

“Good,” Archie sighed. “I won’t be like that again, I promise.”

“We’ll help each other,” Jug promised as he laid back down. “We’ll keep each other right.”

“Like we always have,” in the darkness of the room, Jug’s dark hair was framed by a silver sliver of moonlight that crept into the room from the inadequate blinds. It made him seem almost ethereal, like he was something Archie dreamt. He hardly ever saw Jug without the crown on his head, a safety blanket from when they were kids. He took a moment to enjoy the sight of Jug’s hair flopping onto his face, sweeping across his eyes, but suddenly felt so inexplicably uncomfortable he had to tear his eyes away.

He fell asleep to the sound of him breathing, in and out, as steady as a rock.

* * *

Going to school with Archie felt weird. He was woken up by an alarm clock to a glorious view of Archie’s new found physique- he must’ve taken off his shirt sometime during the night. Jug spent one moment savouring the contours of his body, because asexual or not, Jug could appreciate the finer things in life, and Archie was very fine, before throwing a pillow at Archie to wake him up with a muffled “whazgoingon”.

Jug had a _hot_ breakfast that morning. Fred had made scrambled eggs. Jug thought he might cry when he reached out for it and Fred had put a double helping on his plate and a large glass of orange juice. “You need not want here,” Fred said firmly. “You’re as good my boy as Archie.”

Jug clenched his fists so hard they cut into his palm. There was an overwhelming feeling of guilt, that he did not deserve this, but Archie nudged him and said, “your eggs are getting cold mate,” and suddenly the feeling disappeared.

 For once, Jug allowed himself to enjoy what was offered to him instead of refusing it on the grounds of some desperate need to make himself suffer for tearing apart his family.

 And Jughead smiled.

* * *

Two weeks into this endeavour, he was sitting with Veronica at lunch when she told him he looked much better.

 “What do you mean?”

“You look happier,” she smiled and offered him some juice. “It is a good look on you.”

Jug laughed and looked shyly up at her. In some ways, Ronnie still intimidated him, with her finely cut necklaces and her sharp nails, but he’s been getting better at hiding it. Once you really got to know Ronnie, you’d see that she had no bite for people who didn’t deserve it. She was like the vigilante of Riverdale, taking no injustice, defending the defenceless. She was a fierce and formidable woman who like him, was nothing like her father. “So do you.”

“I also notice how you’ve been looking at Archiekins,” Ronnie winked and laughed as Jug nearly dropped the pen he was artfully twirling in his fingers. “It’s okay. I give you my blessing.”

“Yeah?” Jug asked nervously. “I know you and him had like- a thing thing. Was it?”

Ronnie shook her head.“Go for it. That boy- deserves someone who takes his time about him. I’m too fast, all end, no means,” she smiled wistfully. “Someday, Jug.” 

“You think he likes me?”

“I think he likes _likes_ you,” Ronnie shrugged. “Or according to Kev, anyway, and I’d hope his radar is at least slightly out there. But I can see it. He leans to you.”

Jug shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He wanted- oh, how he wanted to have Archie, that good, sweet boy, beneath him, with him- and yet he stayed away out of respect, because what Archie wanted from him he could not give. It broke his heart. “I can’t give him what he wants.”

“Oh, don’t be so cryptic. Archie is more than sex,” Ronnie replied intelligently. “And he knows who you are. You know that. Stop making excuses for yourself.”

Jug stuck out his tongue at her. Ronnie laughed.

* * *

The night of the homecoming dance, Jug didn’t take Archie. How could he? Archie was a world away. He took Ronnie instead, and Archie had Betty. The two, shaky ever since Betty confessed her feelings, had finally stabilised when Archie had accompanied her to find her sister, Polly. 

Jug did not know exactly what went down between the two of them and the Sisters, but he knew that Archie came back with a bruise on his jaw and a defiant set to his mouth, and Polly had followed him meekly through the door, her arm dripping blood from a glass vase she had shattered.

Betty would tell him the next day how Archie fought through the guards, punching his way through the men to get to the girl, and carrying her out of the door. Her mother had watched, helplessly impressed, as Archie gently placed the girl in his father’s truck and told her to leave them, or he would sue for child neglect.

Alice Cooper had underestimated him, and it was something she would not do again. She had underestimated Polly too, didn’t think for a second she would choose to go to the Blossoms, almost alienated her when she did, before she got wind of the fact that her daughter did carry the family genes, and the Blossoms never had and will never control her. 

Jughead watched Betty and Archie laugh over punch, filled with pride at how far his best friend had come, just how much he had risen to the occasion and become someone better. It spoke wonders for Archie’s strength of will and tenacity, and was a testament to his ability to change.  

Jug and Ronnie came late, as always. She took issue with what Jug was wearing- a plaid shirt and jeans, because the homecoming dance was formal only in the belief of others.

“You’re not wearing that,” she had snorted, and no amount of convincing would change her mind. Which is how Jughead ended up at the dance with a black bowtie and tux, matching her black dress.

Archie had seen the two of them come in, Ronnie on Jug’s arm- he was _missing_ his hat, but Archie quickly spots it clutched in his other hand. They looked like siblings, like the next pair of Blossom twins, with their raven hair and dark eyes- Ronnie was wearing a circlet above her head, the silver nestling into her hair like stars in the sky. She was beautiful and sharp, and Jughead looked like a prince, a king, as he nestled his crown back onto his dark waves.

Archie’s mouth dried up as he watched Jug give Ronnie a customary twirl before setting off for the food. 

“Go after him,” Betty nudged him, smiling serenely. “Go on.”

Archie looked wildly at her, mouth opening to regale tales of all that could go wrong. All he got out was, “he’s my best friend.”

 Betty looked at him meaningfully.  Archie shot daggers at her.

“I won’t take offence,” she took his hand in hers and gripped it tight. “Go after what you want, Archie. Take it. He’s waiting for you to say something.”

Archie opened and closed his mouth repeatedly like a fish. 

Betty sighed and gave him a little smack on his shoulder.

Archie dug his feet into the ground, but when he saw Jug move back to the dance floor and get fawned over by a couple of girls who looked to be from the next town, presumably invited by Reggie, well, he just had to get over there.

“Hey Jug,” Archie gave him a glass of punch and smiled at him. He noticed the tense lines in his jaw and asked, “do you want to go outside for a bit?”

 Jughead smiled gratefully at him and the two burst through the double doors to sink to the floor outside of the throbbing auditorium. The darkness of the hallways seemed comforting, though alone it would be threatening.

 “Too loud?” Archie asked sympathetically. He was very aware of Jug’s perchance to get overwhelmed very easily. “You wanna be alone for a while?”

 “You are not a crowd,” Jug chuckled, and leaned his head slowly on Archie’s shoulder. “It is peaceful to be alone with you.”

 Archie blushed, a flush threatening to top even his hair. “Jug- do you- maybe tomorrow- do you want to go for dinner? Sometime?” 

“Are you asking me out on a date?” Jug sat back up and looked at him seriously, but the quirk of his mouth betrayed him.

“Yes,” Archie felt emboldened by the smirk curling its way across Jug’s face. “I am.”

“Before I- you know, right?” The nervous tone to Jug’s words strike fear into his heart. “That I’m asexual. I haven’t figured out my boundaries yet- never had to- but I-”

“Of course I know, Jug, I’ve known you since we were six years old, crying out loud,” Archie cupped his face in his hands. “Trust me, will you? I don’t just want to fuck you.”

Jughead laughed without sound, a short exhale of breath that managed to convey joy. “Okay. I’ll go to dinner with you.”

“Yeah?” Archie is giddy with the feel of it all.

“Yeah,” Jughead smiled softly at him. It was odd, to see Jughead, rough, coarse, uncouth Jughead, being so soft and gentle and tender and in his hands. It made his heart hurt and expand and finally settle into something steady and warm- the feeling of loving and being loved in return. They are sixteen, they should know nothing of the world, but they’ve been marked by death and hurt by love and although they are sixteen, they can try for something.

All they do is try. It seemed almost good enough. 

Jughead stirred by his side. “Archie?” He called softly.

Archie turned to look at him, pulled out of his thoughts by the gentle nudge of Jughead’s shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Close your eyes,” he huffed, and leaned in to kiss him.

Yes, they can try. Archie will fight for this, no matter how small. In his mind as Jughead pressed himself against him and he could feel the brush of Jughead’s loose waves on his forehead, he cupped their small flame in his hands and protected it from the wind.

They pulled back, Archie blushing and shy, looking at the man next to him as though waiting on something. But Jughead- oh, Jughead was smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please kudos or comment if you liked it, it means the absolute world to me as a creator.


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